Archives for April 30, 2014

The home improvement project continues, and the turkey coop is looking better and better. Today, the painters are pressure washing the entire house in preparation for painting it in the almighty community approved colors, so the aroma of chlorine bleach pervades the nostrils.

On Saturday, the gutters and downspouts were installed. Unfortunately, I needed to be elsewhere due to a long standing commitment, so I could only do a brief walk-around with the gutter guy.

When I returned, I checked out the job and noted that some deviation from the original gutter/downspout design. I had two particular areas of concern: the front door and the side of the house where great torrents of water flow during our Florida toad-floaters. I had to wait for one of those cloudbursts to validate the design.

Yesterday evening, Mother Nature supplied the needed validation. The good news was that the front door was high and dry. The bad news was that the side of the house I was concerned about was not properly served by the rain removal system. That a fancy way of saying the gutter ain’t working.

The gutter on that side used to have three downspouts, one at each end and one in the middle. The one at the right end was not installed by the gutter guy, who I’ll call Juan, because that’s his name. When I did the walk around, however, I had given him freedom of expression, assuming that he knew what he was doing. I’m sure he does, but in this case, there was a problem.

During yesterday’s frog-floater, Artificially Sweetened and I checked out the areas of concern. She certified the front door as “no prooooooblem”. However, she noted that on the side of the house, water was gushing over the gutter at the point of the central downspout. Clearly, there was too much water for one downspout, and, furthermore, the pitch of the roof caused the torrents to overshoot the gutter.

I believe that the remedies should be to install the missing downspout and a piece of sheet metal to divert the flow of water off the roof into the gutter. That’s my non-professional opinion. I’ll see what the contractor figures out. Whatever it is, it just has to work. (It would be nice if it could be used to generate electricity, too, but I have a feeling that’s not in the cards.)

Back to the painting, the painter told me he didn’t know how long it would take because of some more impending rain and stuff. I’m certain that the job will extend into next week. They’re going to do it in sections, and there’ll be two coats on everything — including the white gutters and downspouts, which will become brown. Yeah, community approved trim color.

I’ll be back with more for anyone who is interested in following the course of this project. This ongoing commentary also serves as journal so I can remember what went on here.

Friends' Blogs

Whodat Turkey?

The Nittany Turkey is a retired techno-geek who thinks he knows something about Penn State football and everything else in the world. If there's a topic, we have an opinion on it, and you know what "they" say about opinions! Most of what is posted here involves a heavy dose of hip-shooting conjecture, but unlike some other blogs, we don't represent it as fact. Read More…